This application is based on and claims the priority under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7119 of German Patent Applications 100 11 423.7, filed on Mar. 9, 2000 and 100 52 593.8, filed on Oct. 24, 2000, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The invention relates to a passenger chair or a group of passenger chairs equipped with a convenience device particularly for use in a passenger compartment or passenger cabin in a passenger aircraft.
It is well known to equip passenger seats, particularly aircraft passenger seats, with a convenience device for storing articles and for collecting waste. A pouch for holding printed safety instructions, onboard information, newspapers, magazines and the like is normally secured to the backrest of a passenger seat. German Patent Publication DE 34 47 179 discloses such a pouch in the form of a storage net equipped with elastic strings. Such pouches, even if they are made of netting, are not convenient for holding waste that is produced by passengers. The waste includes drinking cups, bottles, wrapping material, paper waste including used napkins, tissues and empty beverage cans. Passengers nevertheless store this refuse in the pouch where it is hard to retrieve. If the refuse is not stored in these pouches, it is simply dropped to the floor. In both instances the work of the clean-up crew is made more difficult because it is time consuming to retrieve the refuse from the pouches or collect it from the floor. Additionally, these methods of storing refuse are inconvenient for the passengers as well, because a passenger must hold the pouch open with one hand and stuff the refuse into the pouch with the other hand. Even xe2x80x9cstoringxe2x80x9d the refuse on the cabin floor becomes a nuisance particularly on long flights.
Further, cleaning crews must either remove outdated material from these pouches and replace, for example magazines with new magazines. This work also requires the use of both hands. If waste and useful articles are mixed in the pouch, the cleaning crew is required to separate the useful articles from the refuse which also requires the use of both hands in most instances because the material that must remain in the pouch needs to be orderly arranged and, if necessary, cleaned or replaced. The time needed for these operations increases the total time for the cleaning and preparation of the cabin for the next flight which has a negative influence on the so-called turn-around time. The shorter the turn-around time, the better is the profitability of the aircraft operation.
German Patent Publication DE 43 19 214 discloses a waste bag secured to the backrest of a passenger seat. Such waste bags are to be held in place in the area of the folding table that is secured to the back of the backrest, whereby the waste bag is held in place by a mounting strip. The mounting strip is secured either to the backrest in the area of the upwardly folded table or it is secured directly to the backrest below the table or even directly to the table. The known solution of the problem makes it possible to collect the waste separate from any storage of useful flat articles, such as magazines and so forth. However, the conventional solution still leaves it to the passenger whether to stuff the waste into the waste bag or into the pouch. This happens particularly when the access to the waste bag is inconvenient, for example when the folding table is still in its up-position. In that case experience shows that passengers tend to stuff the waste into the storage pouch, whereby the efforts and expenses for the cabin cleaning are hardly reduced because the cleaning crew must still check the storage pouches in order to remove waste in case waste is contained in the storage pouches. The above described prior art leaves room for improvement particularly with regard to avoiding stuffing waste into storage pouches.
In view of the foregoing it is the aim of the invention to achieve the foregoing objects singly or in combination:
to avoid the above problems by preventing passengers from mixing useful articles such as newspapers, magazines and the like with waste materials in the same pouch;
to construct the storage facility and the waste collecting facility in such a way that waste cannot be placed in the storage facility and useful articles cannot be conveniently stored in the waste collecting facility; and
to substantially reduce the time required for cleaning and preparing a cabin for the next flight.
The above objects have been achieved according to the invention by constructing a passenger convenience device comprising a storage bail for flat articles and a separate waste container to be secured in the back facing area of a backrest or armrest of a passenger chair or a group of passenger chairs. The storage bail functions as a clamping or holding bail for storing magazines, flight and aircraft information and the like. The bail is essentially open on four sides and particularly the bail is open backward and thus capable of holding only flat articles while causing trash to fall out through the backward facing opening. The separate waste container is so constructed that it will accept waste, but not flat articles without an extra effort, for example folding the flat articles or rolling-up the flat articles.
At least one waste container is provided for a group of passenger seats, whereby the waste container is preferably secured to the backward facing end of an armrest.
It is an advantage of the invention that the profitability of an aircraft is increased because cleaning crews no longer have to manually separate waste from useful articles. Thus, the turn-around time is reduced and the aircraft can be used more efficiently. Another advantage is seen in that the useful flat articles, such as magazines are more visible to the passenger than heretofore, since only a narrow clamping bail holds the flat articles in place so that inspection is possible without removing the articles from the bail. Furthermore, the nuisance of a cluttered cabin floor is avoided, at least for those passengers that use the present convenience device.